I am so thankful for our East Coast location. Everything is within a day's drive. Traveling is so much easier when you don't have extra hotel expenses, plane tickets, and rental cars. I love that saying "I live where you vacation". Military life has definitely spoiled us with some ideal locations.
While North Carolina and I don't always see eye to eye, I do love its location! Now, if we could have picked any East Coast duty station, I would have picked Virginia. I'm going to dare say it is one of my favorite states. I think I could have been happy there ;) But we will never know! What we will know is between our trip to VA last summer and this quick trip to DC, I still love that state!
If you have been reading this blog for any amount of time, then you know we are all about a road trip.
We road trip EVERYWHERE...
the California coastline...
to North Carolina..
...Florida...
heck, we have even flew to New Orleans just to hop in a car and road trip to FL...
Wow, my kids must hate vacations ;)
Honestly, how are you going to find these cute roadside signs when your 20,000ft above the country?
Traveling would not be the same!
So, Monday morning we took off for DC. Our plan was to stop at the National Museum of the Marine Corps in Quantico, VA. The kids were not on board with this stop but they took one for the team (aka Dad). This museum did not disappoint. And all the kids felt the same after we finished.
I'm giving the museum its own post tomorrow for those wanting more.
The National Museum of the Marine Corps is linked here.
That is the great thing about DC and much of the area, admissions are mostly free.
Everything we did from Day 1 to Day 3 was free. Isn't that the best?
After our museum stop, we grabbed a quick lunch at a local McDs. Teens always win the food vote :( Next stop, the Arlington National Cemetery, a short 45 minutes from Quantico. It was so easy to navigate our way to the cemetery from the freeway. I was a little nervous about the traffic around DC. Everyone says how terrible it is but we didn't get into anything worse than Southern California traffic. The surface streets of Washington DC were crowded but we only did that once.
Arlington was humbling.
Everything is well kept and serene. We walked from the entrance to the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier to JFK's grave site.
The Tomb of the Unknown Soldier is such an experience.
How can you not feel such incredible gratitude for our service members?
And also for those poor folks in their dress uniform is East Coast heat and humidity.
So disciplined!
We took a quick stroll back to the JFK gravesite.
After our time at Arlington, we headed to our AirBnb. We didn't have a great start with that but I'm not going into details. I am curious if you've had good or bad experiences with AirBnB. This was our first time using them and I'm wondering if our experience was normal or abnormal.
We had planned to go to the National Zoo but it didn't work out. Guess what, the zoo is free too ;) Because it's DC! So, our first day ended here and I will pick up with Day 2 on Wednesday. Tomorrow will be lots of pictures of the Marine museum. I promise it's worth it!
Follow Along:
I am so glad that you were able to experience Arlington. There is truly nothing like it, it is such a humbling experience standing in that space.
ReplyDeleteI cannot wait for my children and Jake to experience Arlington. For me, as a former Marine wife (and sister of a Marine) - there will be tears as I visit the final resting place of some friends.
ReplyDeleteI love roadtrips sometimes, but in Texas I feel like you could spend a whole day in the car and not even get out of the state! That's awesome that y'all were able to make it to DC, and it sounds like it was a great trip!
ReplyDeleteSo when you mentioned the Marine museum last week, I immediately told my husband, and he has already added it to our road trip in 2019! These are fabulous pictures- Arlington is an amazing place. To visually see just a portion of the men and women who have made a sacrifice for our country is an awesome sight and makes you appreciate the military even more. Can't wait to see more about the trip!
ReplyDeleteI love visiting DC! Arlington is such a special place to visit, and I can't wait to see where else you went. I'm sorry about your AirBnB! I've only done a couple of rentals through them, each time for big houses for bachelorette parties, and both experiences were great!
ReplyDeleteMeg, Borrowed Heaven